Finding God’s Will

This will be a longer post than usual because it deals with a very important issue that we all face: finding God’s will for our lives. It is life’s most important mission. Some find it more easily than others, some never find it. In this post I will share with you my story in the hope that a few insights from my search might help you on your own search for God’s will.

I can empathize with Joseph of the Old Testament who was given a dream that stirred his heart and called him to live greatly yet was given no game plan. From a very young age on, I grew up hearing stories of men like Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David, and Paul. I saw that God used them in mighty ways and dreamed of one day being used by God in a similar world-changing fashion. They found God’s will for their lives but how was I to find God’s will for my own life? I can remember specific nights in junior high and high school where I truly felt it pressed upon my heart as I lay in my bed that I would do great things for God. What was I going to do? God didn’t tell me that..

But whatever, when I was in high school I didn’t worry about having a vision for my future; I was too wrapped up in sports and hanging out with friends. I didn’t stress out in the least when it came to choosing where I would go to college, I had a very laid back “it’ll all work out” attitude that is typical of any inexperienced high school student. I really didn’t even question whether going to the Academy was God’s will or not.  I thought “if God wants me to go to school there then I will go.” When I received the admission letter, I took that as God’s cue that He wanted me to follow my brother’s footsteps to Colorado.

It quickly became apparent that the Academy was just the place where God wanted me.  It was hard of course, but it was good for me. Throughout my four years there, I met a lot of incredible people (in the US and abroad) and had the most amazing experiences. After four years in Colorado Springs, I received my diploma from the Air Force Academy, threw my hat into the air, and went strait to grad school at Sciences Po in Paris. Similarly, the people I met in Paris and the influence they had on my life confirmed that it was God who had sent me there.

Everything was just dandy up until I finally stepped out of this life-training bubble that we call school. I stepped into the sunlight of the working world and my eyes had a hard time adjusting to the light! The world was not as I expected. I quickly realized that my decision to turn down a pilot slot sentenced me to a safe 7:30 – 4:30 working day sitting behind a desk. “But wait a second, I didn’t ask for safe! I was supposed to do great things for God! How could I do that as a measly ‘assistant flight commander’ at Langley Air Force Base?”

I found myself in a city I did not want to be in and in a job that was unfulfilling. There was one main problem with my situation: I had three years of service left on my commitment to the Air Force. I was stuck in the mud. At 24 years old, the last thing I wanted to do was to spend the next three years of my life in a job I didn’t like. I knew that this wasn’t the vocation that I was called to, so why should I continue in it?

In 1 Samuel 16, David, a shepherd boy, is anointed king, but he returns to fields of sheep because he does not know what steps to take to achieve what has been spoken over him*. I wonder how David felt about going back to be a shepherd. I’m sure he probably thought, “I know I’m not going to be a shepherd my whole life, what am I doing here? A job as a shepherd is by no means a stepping stone to becoming king.”

Not much can compare with the angst of feeling that your life is sitting still or worse that it is going in the wrong direction yet not knowing what action to take or what direction to go in. I don’t know what it is about finishing school that makes us feel that the road we are on finally splits into many different directions. It seemed that my life up to that point had followed a somewhat strait path and had only now brought me to a fork in the road. From high school all the way to the end of grad school I felt like a bowling ball rolling down a lane with kiddy rails. I occasionally bounced off the guardrails which hurt enough to keep me moving forward in a good direction. Then suddenly I arrive at Langley AFB and there are several lanes to choose from and it seems the guardrails are gone! Looking back, maybe God was letting go of my hands and telling me it was time that I learned to walk on my own.

The following passage from my journal conveys what I was feeling at the time.. “I am currently about a month away from my 25th birthday and life seems as unclear as ever. I am still at that point in life where it seems ‘the world is my oyster,’ where every desire and dream I have is out there for the taking. My future is filled with possibilities and it is both exciting and frustrating. I am interested in so many things and so many things are open to me that I don’t know which path is the right one to take.”

Though I felt that way, I really only had two options open to me: stay in the military for three years or pay back over half a million dollars to the Air Force for all the school that they had just paid for (which, I admit, I considered doing). I thank God I didn’t do something really stupid by getting out of the military. For one, I was faced with the moral dilemma that I had made a commitment to the Air Force to serve for five years and I do not think that God takes our commitments lightly. Secondly, I knew that taking on debt like that was just crazy. So knowing that I needed to stay in the military I thought maybe God had a different job for me in the military..

I was getting restless because I thought that I had chosen the wrong career path and worried that I was falling behind my peers career-wise. In my mind, being unhappy and unfulfilled in my current situation meant that I was not in God’s will, because God just wants us to be happy and fulfilled.. Or so I wanted to believe. I therefore determined to change my circumstances. And believe me, I tried everything imaginable. I was more creative in those two years than ever before in my life. I squirmed as much as I could to get out of the situation I was in. I dreamed up an idea to do a documentary on Air Force medical humanitarian missions and I talked to generals and production companies. Every one thought it was a good idea but no one was willing to give it the go ahead. If I could have changed my situation, I would have done so in a second. My wheels were spinning 100 miles per hour but I was going nowhere.

Finally, I gave up; I stopped running. I took the wise advice of my brother and said “ok God, where do you see me going?” and this is the most important part, I accepted the situation that I was in and I took the time to listen for God’s answer. He didn’t tell me the next day. I truly sought God and even gave thanks IN (not for) my present circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18). It took me a little while but I eventually learned that God had something he wanted to teach me through my time in this city and this job.

This is what I learned: I was the one who needed to change, not my circumstances. Praise God that He was gracious enough not to let me change jobs or cities, because by doing so, I wouldn’t have changed anything. My environment would have changed but I would have stayed the same. It didn’t matter what job I had or what city I lived in because it’s not the path we take that matters, it is who we become! God’s will for our lives is our spiritual renewal not our success in the world’s eyes.

Once I learned this truth, I raced to change my perspective and my attitude. When I changed, it was like a logjam broke through in my life. I learned this truth in November 2009 and two months later (in January 2010) I found out I was deploying to Afghanistan. No, I wasn’t going to star in some documentary, but hey, it was movement and change and some adventure.

Many of us are taught that God has a plan for our lives and that it will bring us ultimate fulfillment. This is true. What is false is our tendency to think that if we take a wrong turn and “choose the wrong career” or “marry the wrong person” then we have foregone God’s will for our lives. We think we have missed the boat, so we settle for so much less than God intended. I do believe that God has a perfect plan for our lives, one that will bring us ultimate fulfillment. With that said, His plan and His will is to make us like Christ, not for us to have the most amazing experiences but stagnate spiritually!

The first and hardest step down God’s path is becoming the right person for where we are in our journey. He does not expect us to be perfect right now or even tomorrow.

God’s path is like a video game where the end goal is to be transformed into the image of Christ. Every time we learn a truth, we become a little more like Christ and we can pass to the next level. Sadly, a lot of people stay on the same level their whole lives. Things might change in their lives (i.e. A new wife, job, city, car…etc) but they are just starting the level over and over again. There is only one way to pass a level: by submitting to God. And remember.. there are no cheat codes that allow you to skip levels in this game!